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Recent Statuses

17 days ago
Current Ethical issues aside, AI prose is just really bad.
3 likes
25 days ago
She wanted to read, she wanted to write, but the main thing she wanted was something to fight
4 likes
1 yr ago
Make it clear that you don't need him to be reading Dante tomorrow. Also suggest it would be fun if you had a private language that you could use to mock English speakers in secret.
5 likes
2 yrs ago
Luckily history suggests an infinite ability for people to be shit heads ;)
1 like
3 yrs ago
Achmed the Snake
1 like

Bio

Early 30's. I know just enough about everything to be dangerous.

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Emmaline sagged against Amal, wrapping the coat around her naked body. It still barely reached the top of her thighs but it was far better than nothing. None of the men in the clearing appeared to be paying much attention to the spectacle however. Brenly looked grim and Douglas even more so. To her shock the last man was her abductor who was cradling a bloodied hand, now missing several digits in the tail of his undershirt. Emmaline still had no idea why he had abducted her or why he had been taking her to another clan's holdfast but now was certainly not the time to discuss it. The sun was begining to rise and a soft wind was blowing from the south east. They were standing on a low hill top and around them were ancient stones each carved with strange designs which Emmaline didn't recognize. The wind gusted suddenly and the fog seemed to slide away like a rain drop on a glass pane. For the first time since they had reached Albion Emmaline saw the blue sky above them. The fog below them was not yet dispersed, giving the landscape an eerie aspect, as though they stood on an island in a sea of clouds broken only occasionally by the tops of particularly ancient trees or the crest of distant hilltops.

"Amal, there are greenskins we shoud...."

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgh!" came an ear shattering bellow. An orc burst from the fog, appearing for a moment to be trailing mist like smoke as it rushed forward into the stone circle brandishing its cleaver like axe. Emmaline shrieked in terror and Amal shouted a curse in Araybian. Sir Brenly stepped towards the thing and ducked under a wild axe blow with surprising dexterity before driving the elven sword they had recovered from the corsairs into the things throat. The orc tried to bellow in fury but succeded only in spraying Brenly in a wet mist of blood from its ruined neck. It stepped back and took another unsteady swing, far short of the knight who was now back peadling away. The orc looked momentarily petulant before taking a step towards the Brettonian. It's knees buckled and the brute crashed to the ground with the finality of a felled oak. For a moment there was silence save for the soft rustle of trees in the wind.

"Waaaaargh!"

"Waaaaaargh!"

"WAAAAAARRRRGH!"

The cry echoed from the mist obscured woods below, coming seemingly from all directions. Greenskins began to burst from the fog, scrambling up over trees, roots and rocks to reach the hilltop on which the humans sheltered. A hissing sound warned Emmaline a moment before Asp slithered from concealment and coiled his way up her leg, over her hip and under her borrowed coat, emerging from the sleeve to become her staff. Right at the moment, it didn't seem like the weapon to take on dozens of murderous greenskins.
Emmaline sat on a log trying to catch her breath. Her captor, whomever he had been, had not bound her hands and it had been no great trick to get the bag off her head once she had opened some distance. At this point fleeing seemed like it might have been a mistake. She was alone and naked in a wood that she had no way of finding her way out of. If her abductor was to be believed it was teeming with orcs to boot. Emmaline had grown up in the Empire where orcish invasions were no joke and she didn't doubt, given the Laird had also spoken of orcs, that the claim was true. That ruled out calling for help even if there was someone in ear shot. The omnipresent mist concealed the stars although without any land marks or idea which direction they had headed from the village even that would be a dubious help. She supposed she might use magic to send up a beacon but there was no telling who or what would find her if she called attention to herself. The best option, and the one that appealed to her nature, was to find somewhere safe to hide until day light and then see if she could figure out where she was.

"Feed all o'mies to Mork!" a gutural voice exclaimed nearby. Emmaline froze and then, when she realised freezing wasn't a good instinct, she slipped down behind the mossy log, peering underneath a small gap where the curvature of the trunk lifted away from the ground. Across the clearing she saw two brutal, heavily muscled greenskined figures slouch out of the treeline.

"Feed the painted ones to Gork, their women to Mork!" one of the creatures added. Emmaline felt unaccountably embarrassed that she could understand the orks, for that must be what these brutes were, better than she could understand the men and women in the village from which she had been snatched. Both creatures wore armor of a sort, bits and pieces of cast off steel tied together with leather and links of chainmail and both carried axes that looked like they were probably heavier than she was. Emmaline had seen orcish skeletons and the renderings of various Imperial artists, but somehow found herself unprepared for just how big the brutes really were.

"Galzeez says we feed them soon!" one of the orcs said with a guttural chuckle, running his thumb, almost the width of Emmaline's wrist, over his axe blade, drawing a bead of blood.

"No trust gobbo scum 'ike 'im, even if he does have the big waaaagh magik," the other orc snarled, spitting a gobbet of spit that hit the other side of the log from where Emmalime was concealed with a sound like a custard pie hitting a clown at the fair.

"Galzeez is cunnin' even for a gobbo," the other orc rejoined with a grunt. Their voices were so similar in tone and timbre that Emmaline could not tell them appart and she had the momentary sensation she was listening in on a single orcs internal monologue rather than a conversation.

"Yeah well cunnin' or..." the first orc said before lifting his fist into the air and silencing his companion. Both greenskins became as immobile as tree-trunks.

"I smell 'ommies," the orc snarled, fat lips drawing back from rotted and yellowed fangs that glinted like chisel faces in the moonlight. Emmaline willed her heart to beat less noisily and resisted the urge to duck back from her improvised view point. Any movement now would certainly give her away.

"Where..." one of the orcs grunted, turning slowly in a circle like a hunting dog seeking a scent.

"Da'know but fresh, lets get the lads out and hunt us some pink skins," the first orc snarled. The both turned and jogged out of the clearing, surprisingly quietly given their improvised armor. Emmaline let out a terrified breath and counted to thirty. Then she stood up and headed off in the opposite direction to that the orcs had taken. That was no certainty of safety, but it seemed like the best decision she could make under the circumstance.
Emmaline lounged on the cushions draping herself across them as provocative as possible. She was confident that Amal’s sudden appearance would have scattered the idly curious and voyeuristic. If anyone had seen anything rumors would certainly spread in such a small village, but Emmaline didn’t see how that could be a problem. It was even a little enjoyable to think of the outrage it might spark with the pinch faced women who had all but forced her into the scratchy grey dress. That point encouraged her to exaggerate her pose even further, rolling onto her stomach and propping her chin in her hands, framing her breasts with her elbows and crossing her feet coquettishly. Intent on surprising Amal when he returned. There was a sound from the rear door of the hutt and she pouted slightly. Amal must have circled around the building and come in from the rear, obviating her display.

“Welcome back,” she purred in a sultry tone and then looked back over her shoulder just in time to see the biggest man she had ever seen swinging a short length of timber in a short vicious arch. It slammed into the side of her head and the world exploded in stars and fell into darkness.

The headache hammered at her temples as Emmaline awoke. The world seemed to bob and roll as though she was on the sea and the stink of canvas stained with mould filled her nostrils. For a moment the sensations cosnpired to make her think she was still on a ship but then the memory of the last few hours came back to her. She was still naked and someone was carrying her over a shoulder, there was something, probably a canvas sack, over her head. She had been kidnapped!

“Help!” she tried to yell, though in her groggy state the worlds came out as a generalized slurred yelp. A powerful hand slapped over her mouth, choking off the cry.

“Shut it lass!” snapped a deep male voice, “these woods are teeming with Orcs! Keep your mouth shut and by tomorrow you will be a clan wife of the O’Callahans. That will show your fancy man to stick his nose in where it dosen’t belong!” Emmaline responded with a knee aimed roughly in the area she imagined her abductors groin could be located. Her captor grunted as she connected with his thigh and then her head rocked back from an open handed slap.

“I said shut…” the unnamed man started to snarl but Emmaline snapped a few syllables in the arcane language of wizards. There was a flash of golden light and the man yowled in pain and staggered back blind and cursing. Emmaline turned and ran blindly into the woods, ignoring the shouts of her temporarily blinded captor.
-369






Sophia walked among the forest of radio antennae arms and legs burning from the long climb. Finding someone who could see the future was a problem if they didn't want to be found. Fortunately many quasi-human entities obeyed some broad rules. The Forecaster could sometimes be found at the scenes of accidents or disasters, sometimes near media equipment like that which cluttered the roof of the city's largest television broadcaster. As Sophia wasn't willing to cause a traffic pile up to summon him, she was forced to take the more passive option.

As she looked out over the city the witch could feel currents of magical energy shifting in the night. Whatever was happening with the mayor and the missing Ms Curtis had stirred the arcane underpinnings of the City. She could feel forces moving in the unforgiving night. Reaching down she drew her phone from her pocket. Whatever was happening this wasn't the time to be alone.

Ha!<

Everyone thinks I know something! Martinez already threatened to shoot me if I didn't find her<

Looking for forecaster now<

1.5 mil each sounds like a good nights work!<
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